In keeping with the namesake of this blog, I give you another phone review. This time, we here at the .zine have gotten our grubby little hands on Nokia's finest, the N95 8GB. Is it everything you could hope for in a device? Should we have gotten Nokia's other wunderkind, the N82? Read on to find out!
The N95 8GB (from here on in known as the N95-4) is by no means a small device, coming in at almost an inch thick its nearly as big as a blackberry. But its what's under the hood that counts here and the boys in Finland sure know how to throw in everything but the kitchen sink. Just about everything you could put in a phone has been intergrated into to this monster of a device. Quad band GSM, GPRS, and EDGE and dual band HSDPA in the American flavor along with WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 , GPS and a 5 megapixel auto focus camera round out what many believe is the worlds best smartphone. It doesn't end there, with a 2.8 inch QVGA screen, dual slider and 8 GB worth of memory on board, maybe all those people are right. TV out and a 3.5 mm headphone jack only sweeten the deal.
S60 3rd Ed. Feature pack 1 round out the deal, bringing one handed ease of use to all those that can afford this pricy piece of kit. But the real question is, is it worth all that and more? Well it depends on who's using it. Phone use and calling is a snap, with outgoing and incoming audio being topnotch. Signal reception is the usual Nokia gold standard with the phone able to hold on to a call even with one or no bars of service. Texting is a breeze with the tactile, albeit smallish keyboard. Setting up email takes no time at all and support for Exchange mail is just a download away. Stereo speakers make sure you don't miss a beat, much less a phone call or message. This thing is seriously loud, almost scarily so.
The slider is much improved over the N95-1 and we are happy to report no wiggle or shimming. Good job Nokia for listening to a lot of the complaints many users had with previous versions. Surfing over EDGE or Wifi is simple and intuitive. Just pop in your SIM card of choice and the proper settings are loaded on to the phone. No hassle or fuss. Searching for a WiFi signal is easy and I logged onto to my WPA2 protected router with no problem after putting in my security key. Setting up access points for future use is a little bit of a hassle for those not experienced with s60, but after digging through a few well laid out menus you'll be surfing in no time at all. Speaking of S60, it has come a long way from the days of the 7610 and it's our opinion that ease of use rivals that even of RIM's (Blackberry maker) OS.
Like taking pictures, well the N95-4 has got you covered. Still images in sunlight rival that of standalone cameras. Indoor shots are good with a steady hand and lots of ambient light. Night shots and those indoors with low light are helped with an LED assist light, but the quality suffers as to be expected with a camera phone sensor. Still, if you want your camera phone to live up to its name you can't do much better than this or Nokia's own N82 or Sony Ericsson's K850i. So do we like our new toy? In one word, yes. Those looking for a Qwerty super phone might have better luck with one of HTC's WinMo devices. But if speed, ease of use and a relatively small device are what you are looking for then your search is over. Nokia has managed to squeeze an mp3 player, 5mp digital camera and GPS unit into something that slips into your pocket and still makes phone calls. I'd say thats pretty damn cool, now all Nokia needs to do is drop it's laptop like price tag.
As always, leave your questions in the comments or drop us an email.
1 comment:
Wow, that was a helluva review!
Keep it up! =)
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